LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION The LBJ Library Oral History Collection is composed primarily of interviews conducted for the Library by the University of Texas Oral History Project and the LBJ Library Oral History Project. In addition, some interviews were done for the Library under the auspices of the National Archives and the White House during the Johnson administration. Some of the Library's many oral history transcripts are available on the INTERNET. Individuals whose interviews appear on the INTERNET may have other interviews available on paper at the LBJ Library. Transcripts of oral history interviews may be consulted at the Library or lending copies may be borrowed by writing to the Interlibrary Loan Archivist, LBJ Library, 2313 Red River Street, Austin, Texas, 78705. SHARON FRANCIS ORAL HISTORY, INTERVIEW III PREFERRED CITATION For Internet Copy: Transcript, Sharon Francis Oral History Interview III, 6/27/69, by Dorothy Pierce McSweeney, Internet Copy, LBJ Library. For Electronic Copy on Diskette from the LBJ Library: Transcript, Sharon Francis Oral History Interview III, 6/27/69, by Dorothy Pierce McSweeney, Electronic Copy, LBJ Library. GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS SERVICE LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON LIBRARY Legal Agreement Pertaining to the Oral History Interviews of Sharon Francis In accordance with the provisions of Chapter 21 of Title 44, United States Code and subject to the terms and conditions hereinafter set forth, I, Sharon Francis of Charlestown, New Hampshire do hereby give, donate and convey to the United States of America all my rights, title and interest in the tape recordings and transcripts of the personal interviews conducted on May 20, June 4, June 27, and August 20, 1969 in Washington, D.C. and prepared for deposit in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. This assignment is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) The transcripts shall be available for use by researchers as soon as they have been deposited in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. (2) The tape recordings shall be available to those researchers who have access to the transcripts. (3) I hereby assign to the United States Government all copyright I may have in the interview transcripts and tapes. (4) Copies of the transcripts and the tape recordings may be provided by the Library to researchers upon request. (5) Copies of the transcripts and tape recordings may be deposited in or loaned to institutions other than the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library. Signed by Sharon Francis on September 5, 1980 Accepted by Robert M. Warner, Archivist of the United States on November 10, 1980 Original Deed of Gift on File at the Lyndon B. Johnson Library, 2313 Red River, Austin, TX 78705 ACCESSION NUMBER 81-70 INTERVIEW III DATE: JUNE 27, 1969 INTERVIEWEE: SHARON FRANCIS INTERVIEWER: DOROTHY PIERCE McSWEENY PLACE: Mrs. Francis' offices in Washington D.C. at Pennsylvania Avenue Tape 1 of 2 M: Mrs. Francis, when we stopped on our last session we were in March of 1968, and you had been discussing the Women's Speakers Bureau and the involvement of some members of the administration as far as nonpolitical activities in speechmaking around the country. I'd like to turn this back over to you with your journal and continue as we had, with you progressing chronologically and my inserting questions every now and then when it's necessary, which isn't very often. F: All right. In April of 1968 Mrs. Johnson took thirty-eight foreign correspondents from Western European countries on a Discover America trip to Texas. Did we mention this last time at all? M: Yes, we did. F: Yes. I think I felt then that the press coverage was so extensive of the trip that there was no particular need to rehearse where we went or what we did. If I'm repeating, we can take care of it later. One of my principal roles on the trip was to spend time talking with the journalists, finding out what questions were in their minds and attempt to answer them and generally help with their stories. This was a pleasing assignment for me, and it meant lots and lots of conversation sitting on the airplanes and the buses and every spare moment as we proceeded on the trip. The question that I found hardest to cope with which a number of them asked me was, "Why is the First Lady of the land laying on such an enormous effort for us? It's very nice, but she's giving five days of her time, a number of staff members. It definitely is an impressive operation.” Most of them were incredulous to be beneficiaries. While they loved it and they enjoyed it, it was tourism on a scale totally unfamiliar to them and unprecedented anywhere, where the First Lady of the land, the equivalent of the queen or ruling consort, would devote so much time and thought and effort essentially to publicity. She came off with very high marks, as one would expect, from the journalists. Sharon Francis -- Interview III -- 2 Without question, those who spoke with her were enormously impressed by her quality and depth of interest in them and her ability to interpret history, local events, the stories behind the landscapes that we passed through in Texas. M: I believe you told me that that trip was a little bit overshadowed by some national events at the time. F: Yes. The death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the subsequent riots in the nation's capital were beaming in to us from telephone calls and from news accounts and messages all along the way. Daily Mrs. Johnson was in contact with the President and daily considered the option of our having to turn around and go back to Washington. Fortunately we did not have to break the appointments that had been made for the trip, and he advised her that Washington was no place to be at the moment. When we arrived back, being people so intimately involved with the city itself and the people of the city and finding the pins had been knocked out from under so much of the city, morale was ghastly. There were troops all over the city; an enormous encampment of the National Guard on Hains Point, a phalanx of troops surrounding the White House. Everybody began wearing their security badges around their necks at all times, a lot of security checking, a slight air and feeling that people must have experienced who've experienced military occupation. For a few days Washington was like that. Everyone had their stories of encountering tear gas or some form of violence or the reaction to violence. We in the beautification program were vitally concerned about the projects we had worked on and how they might have fared. The day I returned I took a White House car to look at the riot damaged areas and also to look at some of our parks and playgrounds. I told my husband I was going to do so on the telephone. He said, "Is anyone going to go with you?” I said, "No.” He said, "Well, wait, I'll come over.” Because he, who had lived through the last four days that I hadn't lived through, was sufficiently concerned that there still could be trouble. He didn't feel I should be out, even with a good driver in a White House car. So the two of us spent a couple of hours in the morning on 14th Street, H Street, 8th, and the other areas seeing a proportion of the pattern of damage, the looting, the destruction. The hostility, as was well reported I think in the press at the time, was selective. It was aimed at pawn shops. It was aimed at high priced grocers. It was timed at clothing stores and liquor stores where either people had been gouged or where looting was going to be attractive. The most impressive thing to me was that the Giant food store up on 14th Street that had done extensive not only landscaping and beautification outside, which had been maintained by local teenagers and then by Pride, Incorporated, but also Sharon Francis -- Interview III -- 3 had a consumer consultant service for shoppers who were trying to get maximum nutrition on a minimum budget--Giant had had these two definite community benefits at that store--wasn't harmed, nothing phased or touched. I called the public relations director of Giant that afternoon to ask, since everything had been devastated around it, what had happened. "Well," he said, "not only does the community like us, and not only do we have a black manager in that store, and he comes out of the neighborhood, but during the riots some of the local people set up coffee right in the parking lot of the store and fed coffee and donuts around the clock. The manager was out, store employees were out full time during the nights of rioting and didn't discriminate about whether they were giving coffee and donuts to rioters or nonrioters, but just reminded everyone that this was a place that belonged to the community and that cared about the community.” He said, "We weren't touched at all." Then I went and looked at parks, playgrounds, all the other areas adjacent to riot damaged areas to see if there had been any damage. There wasn't a speck. One would like to assume that these beautified spots meant so much that people didn't want to harm them, and that can be at least in part true. I think also more of the benefit to them came from negative sources than positive.